


with a shuddering gasp

by respoftw



Series: 35 Ways To Say I Love You In The Pegasus Galaxy [11]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Drug Withdrawal, Episode Related, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Spoilers for s02e11: The Hive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 15:19:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7981300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ways to Say "I love you" #11</p><p>Carson hates his job sometimes</p>
            </blockquote>





	with a shuddering gasp

**Author's Note:**

  * For [librarychick_94](https://archiveofourown.org/users/librarychick_94/gifts).



There were moments, few and far between though they were, when Carson had hated his job.  Losing his first patient back in medical school was one of them, the first time he had to deliver a death sentence to someone another.  Most of the time he felt like he’d put that all behind him.  Yes, it was still hard.  Yes, it sent him to bed with a dram or two of the good whisky in his belly some nights, but, all in all, he thought he had gotten to a place where he had at least made peace with the hard times.

Watching Rodney shake and scream his way through withdrawal proved to him that he still had the capacity to hate his job after all.

Listening to Rodney sob, hearing him beg for death if he couldn’t get the enzyme, had hit Carson deep in his core.  Knowing that Rodney had done this to himself in a selfless attempt to save his team, well that hit Carson somewhere much deeper.  He was ashamed to admit that he wouldn’t have thought Rodney capable of that kind of act; the man who had attended the infirmary for a splinter on more than one occasion  _ shouldn’t _ have been capable of that kind of act.  It just went to show him how much Rodney had changed, how much they all had, over the past year.  Or maybe Rodney hadn’t changed at all.  Maybe Carson had just never seen it, never bothered to look past the bluster that Rodney shielded himself with.

He just hoped that his friend’s sacrifice wasn’t absolute.  He was cautiously confident that it wouldn’t be; he’d not been lying to Elizabeth when he said that Rodney was through the worst of it, but if the past thirteen years had taught him anything about the medical profession, it was that sometimes they weren’t much more than the voodoo witch doctors that Rodney accused them of being.  

Sometimes sitting by someone's bedside and willing them to keep fighting was all that he could do.

“You daft bugger,” Carson muttered, “you better pull through this or Colonel Sheppard won’t let me hear the end of it.”

“ _ Sh-p-ard _ .”

Carson stood up from his position by the bed and leaned over his charge and cast an eye over the monitors as he took Rodney’s pulse.

“Rodney, laddie, are you with me?” he asked.

“ _ Sheppard _ ,”  Rodney muttered again, his agitation increasing.

“He’s not here, Rodney,”  Carson signalled one of the nurses to bring him another dose of sedatives.  “We don’t know where he is.  Can you tell me?”

Rodney was shaking his head back and forth again, his eyes bloodshot and painful looking as they widened in fear.  Carson swore gently under his breath as he watched the numbers that represented Rodney’s already hypertensive blood pressure start to spike.

“It’s OK, Rodney,” he soothed, “it’s all OK.  We’re going to find them and it’ll all be all right.  Now calm down for me laddie, will you.”

Rodney continued to shake and Carson knew instinctively that he wasn’t hearing him now, not really. He could see it in the way Rodney’s too wide eyes weren’t tracking him.  The monitors started to beep and Carson yelled over his shoulder for some help.

“Carson.”

Carson turned his attention back to Rodney at the sound of his name, surprised to see him aware again.  Rodney’s face was flushed red, the sweat soaking into his scrubs as he strained to sit up.

“Whoa there,”  Carson tried to push him back down on the bed but the lingering drugs lent him enough strength to push back, only the restraints around his wrists and ankles keeping him from grabbing hold of Carson.

“You need to tell him,”  Rodney gasped.  “Promise me.  Promise me, promise me,  _ promise mepromisemepromiseme _ . ”

Carson felt a chill run down his spine at the raw panic in Rodney’s voice.

“What?” he said.  “Tell who what?  I promise Rodney.”

“Sheppard.”  Rodney tried to lunge forward again and Carson was glad of the second pair of hands that joined him in pushing Rodney back down on the bed, even more glad to see the syringe loaded up with what he needed to calm Rodney back down.

“What do you want me to tell Sheppard, Rodney?”  Carson distracted him with the question while he inserted the needle, pushing the thumb plunger down.

“I love him,”  Rodney gasped as the drugs hit his system, the strength already leaving him.  “Tell him that I love ‘m.  Always h’ve.   _ F’r’v’r _ .”  

Carson watched Rodney’s eyes flutter close as his voice grew weaker.  He breathed a sigh of relief as the numbers on the monitor started to drop back to a more reasonable level and reached out to rest his hand against Rodney’s sweat soaked hair for a second.

“You daft bugger,” he said again.

“Doctor?”  

Carson looked up to see Marie standing next to him.

“Thank you,” he said.

She nodded.  “Of course, Doctor. You should get some sleep,” she said.  “We can watch him.  He shouldn’t wake up again tonight.”

Carson nodded reluctantly.  “You’re right.  Just...call me if there’s any changes.”

“I will, Doctor.”

Carson took one last look at the monitors and, assured that Rodney was as stable as they could make him, he turned to leave.  He paused at the door and turned back.

“Marie?”

“Yes, Doctor?”

Carson nodded his head towards Rodney’s bed.  “I know I shouldnae have to tell you this but, what he said - - “

“Will never be repeated by me,” Marie assured him.

“Aye,”  Carson smiled sadly.  “That’s a good lass.”

He left the infirmary and hoped that tomorrow brought some better news.

_ Daft buggers, the pair of them. _

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi! on [Tumblr](http://buffycuddlespigs.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also, yes, I like to do 11 year too late episode tags. No regrets.


End file.
